The Twins spent $84 million to acquire top-notch starting pitchers Ricky Nolasco and Phil Hughes, but their 2014 ace was up their sleeve all along.

Kyle Gibson continued his April mastery with a career-high eight shutout innings Thursday afternoon in a 7-0 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays at icy Target Field.

Minnesota's coldest home game in the franchise's 54 seasons failed to cool off Gibson, who improved to 3-0 and lowered his earned-run average to 0.93.

Staked to a comfortable 5-0 lead, the second-year right-hander cruised through Toronto's lineup, allowing only five base runners while striking out four. He kept the Blue Jays off balance with an efficient repertoire of sliders and sinkers that induced 10 groundouts, which would have been 11 save for a Pedro Florimon error.

"That was a great performance," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. "He was in control of the ballgame. He's pretty calm out there. He looks good."

After Gibson threw 105 pitches, pitching coach Rick Anderson hugged him in the dugout and said his day was finished. Gibson lobbied for a chance to nail down his first complete game.

"I said, 'I don't feel done. Just give me 10 pitches,' " Gibson said. "He said, 'If I give you 10 pitches, you're going to be at 115 (the) third start of the year, so that's not going to happen.' I tried."

Gibson, 25, is less than two years removed from reconstructive elbow surgery that sidelined him the entire 2012 season. He went 2-4 with a 6.53 earned-run average in 10 starts with Minnesota last year before being demoted in August to Triple-A Rochester.

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But the highly touted prospect out of the University of Missouri has been locked in throughout 2014.

Gardenhire recognized the transformation in Gibson's confidence and command from the start of spring training.

"It wasn't like he was out there on a mission. He was just doing his thing," the manager said. "He went through it last year, got a taste of it. It's time for him to step up and do this."

Gibson said he pitched in plenty of cold weather and snow at Missouri, and he obviously was not hampered by the 31-degree game-time temperature.

"I don't mind it. I think I'm the warmest guy on the field, moving around all the time," he said.

The Twins chased knuckleballer R.A. Dickey in the fifth inning, batting around to open a 5-0 lead. Trevor Plouffe and Jason Kubel had RBI singles, Josmil Pinto doubled in a pair with a 400-plus foot drive that just missed landing in the bullpens and Kurt Suzuki added a sacrifice fly.

Minnesota scored two more in the sixth off reliever Todd Redmond on Plouffe's sacrifice fly and a double by Chris Colabello, whose 16 RBIs led the American League entering Thursday night's schedule.

Dickey and his floater baffled the Twins through three innings, but they loaded the bases in the fourth without scoring before cashing in during the fifth.

"Up to that point he had kind of been in cruise control," said Colabello. "But as a group, we just did a really good job having patient at-bats when he was trying to nibble."

Winning the opener of Thursday's split doubleheader allowed the Twins (7-7) to climb back .500 entering the nightcap.